Alone
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Andrea, short. S1, Ep5 "Wildfire." Andrea knew what she had to do. Empty words weren't going to help her at all, especially not from Lori. She would do what she had to do and then she would truly be alone in this world.


**AN: This is in a series of "shorts" that I'm doing for entertainment value as I rewatch some episodes. Some of them are interpretations/rewrites of scenes that are in each episode. Some are scenes that never happened but could have in "imagination land". They aren't meant to be taken seriously and they aren't meant to be mind-blowing fic. They're just for entertainment value and allowing me to stretch my proverbial writing muscles. If you find any enjoyment in them at all, then I'm glad. If you don't, I apologize for wasting your time. They're "shorts" or "drabbles" or whatever you want to call them so I'm not worrying with how long they are. Some will be shorter, some will be longer.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Anything that anyone could say would be nothing more than a chain of empty words strung together. They meant well, but their words were worth nothing. Their comfort did nothing to ease the suffocating pressure in Andrea's chest.

Lori's words, perhaps, meant the least of all of them. The woman came, kneeling in the dirt, and pretended that they were friends. She pretended that they had more in common than the simple fact that they'd ended up together in the rock quarry. Lori's preference, as far as female company went, was clearly Carol—and that was only because the woman also had a child and was, therefore, somehow more available to care for Lori's son when Lori had other things to do and other places to be. Andrea had almost felt, in Lori's eyes, less validated as a woman because she had no children and no sad story as to how she might have lost hers in the dark moments when the world came crashing down around all of them.

All Andrea had left, at least as far as people who shared her DNA went, was Amy.

And now Amy was lying, lifeless, on the ground in front of her and all Andrea could think was that it _should've been her_. She should've been the one that went to the bathroom at the wrong moment. She should've been the one that was bitten if either of them was going to be torn apart. She was the older sister. It was her job to _go first_. Morales shouldn't have stopped her, pushed her to the ground, when she'd lunged for the Walker. At least—if nothing else—she might be spending some of her time realizing that at least she was going _with_ Amy.

Now she was just sitting, keeping vigil over her sister's body, and the rest of them were practically circling her like hawks.

She'd welcomed Dale's presence to some degree. At least he'd _known_ Amy. At least he'd bothered to get to know her. He'd bothered to get to know Andrea. He'd asked them about their lives and he'd shared pieces of his own. He'd been warm and open with them and he'd welcomed them into his life. He'd even proclaimed, coming to pay his respects to Andrea, that they were the first people he cared anything for since he'd lost his wife.

His words, though they did nothing to relieve the heavy weight in Andrea's chest, were at least sincere and heartfelt. He meant what he said. He wanted to sit with her. He wanted to say goodbye to Amy. He wanted to do whatever he could, and he understood that it really wasn't much, to comfort Andrea over her loss.

But Lori's words had been nothing more than hard to swallow.

"Andrea? I'm so sorry. She's gone. You gotta let us take her. We all cared about her and I promise we'll be as gentle as we can."

Her tone had been nearly condescending. She'd acted as though Andrea were incapable of understanding that her sister was gone—that what remained now was a shell of the person that Amy used to be. She'd acted as though Andrea needed to be coddled and spoken to like she was barely older than Lori's son. As though Andrea needed Lori to help her with figuring out what loss meant and how to deal with grief.

Andrea had lost everyone. Amy held out the hope that her parents were still alive—because that's what Amy needed to do—but Andrea had accepted their death as soon as she'd seen how bad things really were. She'd mourned them before she'd even mounted the steps to Dale's R.V. for the first time on the highway.

But Lori was going to help her with her grief—because Lori had such a great experience with loss.

Lori who had, and they all knew it, been sneaking off to the woods with Shane multiple times a day—both of them disappearing from camp while Carol kept an eye on Carl along with her own daughter. Lori whose son was fine. Lori whose husband had come back from the dead. Lori whose greatest problem, at this moment, was juggling all the people she _had_ and worrying—because it was written all over her face and her husband was blind if he couldn't see it—that someone would let her secret be known.

Lori was going to help Andrea with her grief because Lori had lost so much.

Andrea was in control of her senses. She was in control of her reasoning. Her broken heart didn't mean that she wasn't able to muddle through what death was and the fact that Amy wasn't coming back—at least not as Amy. But she fully intended to keep her vigil. She fully intended to be there and to be the one that put Amy down. She was going to say goodbye to her, one last time, and she would stop her from being one of those monsters. She was going to come through for Amy, this time, because she'd never come through for her before—and this was the last chance she'd ever get.

She didn't regret pulling the gun on Rick this time. She didn't regret reminding him that, not only was she in control of her senses, but she was fully aware of the functionality of the gun and she knew how to remove the safety so that the weapon would fire.

She left the safety off, too, because she knew that she would need it. She'd need it in the moment that Amy returned—as something not at all her little sister—when Andrea could apologize, once more, for all the time that she'd missed and she could end this.

The last thing she could do for her sister.

And then, without a shadow of a doubt, Andrea would be alone.


End file.
